Happy Birthday Jocelyn!

My baby is a year old today. Holy crap. My baby is a year old. Where did the year go? I can’t believe it’s been that long. I am still in disbelief that I am a parent. And it has been a full year.

When I got home from work yesterday, Jocelyn walked to the back door to greet me all by herself. Nobody walked with her. Nobody carried her. And in her T-shirt and pants (not a onesie), she looked like a little girl. It was her last day of officially being an infant, and she already looked like a toddler. Scratch that, she looked like she was about to go outside and play with her friends. My baby is growing so fast.

This parenting thing is amazing in ways that I never imagined possible. The biggest surprise is the love. I had NO idea that I could love somebody so deeply, so intensely, so purely as I do Jocelyn. I always felt that the concept of unconditional love was stupid. Of course love comes with conditions – conditions that if I love you, you will treat me with respect and kindness and not break my heart. But the love you have for your child does come without conditions. I love her with all of my heart, even when she is up all night, even when she accidentally bites my nipples, even when she is cranky and difficult. I love her through it all. And I love her in ways that I can’t even articulate.

She amazes me every day. She went from being a ball of cute who pretty much only cried, slept and pooped, who only had 30 or so minutes of quiet alert time for good interaction, to an active, smart, funny, mischievous little girl. She is so smart – I love to watch her try to figure things out. She seems to have a bit of a mechanical bent – she grabs at the clips for the various straps (stroller, high chair, my backpack) and tries to figure out how they work. She works really hard at all of her skills, and is very determined to get them right. She knows the answer to “What does the cow say?” – she very proudly says “MMMmmm” and then claps and smiles. She knows that I am Mama and that Mike is Dada, even though she doesn’t call us that, and she knows the cats’ names and can sort of say “cat.” She loves to play peak-a-boo with us, and sometimes enjoys it when we play it with her. She has an infectious laugh. The funniest thing to her is anything grandma does. The second is when she pushes us and we pretend to fall down. The third is when we toss her in the air, hold her upside-down, and tickle her. She is a little dare devil. She is opinionated. When she likes something, she smiles, laughs, claps, etc. When she hates it she cries. There is no mystery about how she feels about things. At Gymboree she hates baby soccer and Charlie Chaplin. She loves bubble time, play time and parachute time. She can take or leave the air log. She usually makes up her own game rather than working on the skills in the curriculum. And she loves shakers.

She is already defiant and sneaky, which is hilarious. She is smart enough to know which cabinets she is allowed to go into and which she is not. But when she thinks that nobody is looking she gingerly wanders over to the cabinets that are off-limits, looks around to see if anybody is watching, and then smiles when she catches your eye (because of course somebody is always watching). When she is mad at us she opens the cabinet anyway. When I tell her no, she gives me a dirty look. Sometimes she laughs and does it anyway. When Mike tells her no, her whole face falls apart and she cries.

Jocelyn is also a climber. She is obsessed with stairs, and I am very glad we don’t have any in our house. But she routinely climbs her high chair, the dish washer and attempts to climb the back door (it has a big window in it, so she tries to step her tiny foot onto the tiny moulding around the window). She tries to climb up the couch, and is able to climb down it. She also tries to climb down my body when I am nursing her to sleep but she decides that it’s not bed time.

She has more toys than anybody I know, but would prefer to play with measuring cups, kitchen towels, cell phones, remote controls, and boxes that interesting toys came in. She loves her stuffed animals, especially her Wocket and Winnie the Pooh. She loves to copy the grown-ups – so she’s a great water drinker (can even drink out of a straw). But because she loves to copy the grown-ups she is very interested in Pepsi cans and beer bottles (thanks dad and grandma!). She is a pretty good eater, and will try anything – especially off of our plates. She likes hummus. When she expressed interest in my unsweet iced tea, I let her take a sip and she liked that, too. Due to the caffeine I didn’t let her drink much. She waited until she was 9 months to crawl, even though she cruised at 7 and then walked at 10. She loves music and loves to dance. When she was itty-bitty she loved to be held while you danced around and listened to music. That got really fun when she could hold herself up and bop along. Now that she can walk she prefers to just bop on her own. She often breaks into dancing when it’s not the time – like when a song comes on TV.

She is not interested in TV in the slightest, but she loves two commercials: the ASPCA ones with Sarah McLaughlin, and the Sherwin Williams one with the landscape all made up of brightly colored paint chips. She also likes the trailer for the new Winnie the Pooh movie, but I really think she just likes the Keane song. She loves to ‘help’ fold laundry – and by help I mean unfold the thing you just folded. She also likes to take the clothes and try to put them on. She has more clothes than any baby needs. But baby girl clothes are just SO cute that we can’t help ourselves but over-buy. She is a big girl – tall and heavy for her age, with a big head. They say big babies are smarter, so hopefully that is true. But we will still love her even if she is just normal.

She is also really, really pretty. I know that parents are supposed to say that, and that I am surely biased. But I really think that she is. With Mike and me as parents, it really could have gone either way. But she seems to have the best of both of us. She has his eyes and forehead shape and my cheekbones and smile. She appears to have my mom’s nose. She has gorgeous red hair that is getting really long, but that I don’t have the heart to cut because it’s just so pretty.

Over the past year I have lost sleep (so much sleep, she is a terrible sleeper), sanity and my figure. I will probably never look good naked again. But I have gained wisdom, perspective and a sense of purpose. I am so much stronger than I ever gave myself credit for. I am also so much weaker in some ways, and I have learned to ask for help when I need it. I am such a better person now than I was, all for having known this tiny person for the past year. Thank you for letting me be your mommy, Jocelyn. And thank you for loving me and needing me and making my life feel complete. And for letting me know that I was nowhere near my maximum capacity for love, and that it grows every day.